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COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF JAINISM
According to his own statement, in the Parsvanathacarita88, he wrote that work in Saka 947, corresponding to 1025 A.D., in the court of the Western Cālukya king Jayasimha II (1015-1043 A.D.), when the latter was stationed near the river Ghataprabhā. We further learn from this work that the guru of his guru viz. Śrīpāla was the chief of a town called Simbapura (Simhapuraikamukhya) and in his Nyāya. viniscayavivarana he calls himself the lord of Simhapura (Srimatsimhamahipati). * There is some controversy regarding this Simhapura ; but K. Krishnamoorthy, the editor of Vādirāja's Yasodharacarita, is strongly of the opinion that Vādirāja's Simhapura is in modern Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu and it is now known as Singaveram. From his prašasti of the Nyāyaviniscayavivarana", we learn that he was honoured in the court of king Jayasinha as a great debator and he had the title of Syadvāda-vidyāpati. The Pārsvanāthacarita*% of Vadirāja is an epic in 12 Books, in which the life of the penultimate Tirthankara, has been told. It is based on the relevant section (chapter 73) of Gunabhadra's Uttar apuräna. However, the author has not shown any acquaintance with the much earlier work, the Kalpasūtra, where the life of this Tirthankara, has been told, for the first time. The story-element is practically absent, although we have very useful references to earlier Digambara saints and writers like Umāsvāti, Gydhrapiñca, Samantabhadra, Akalavka, Vādisimba, Jinasena, Anantavirya, Višeshavādin and lastly Viranandin, the author of the Candraprabhacarita. We have a commentary on this work by Subhacandra, the author of the Pandavapurana, written in V.S, 1608.
The Yasodharacarita(Yc) was written after the Pārsvanatha. carita and it appears from the YC 8 that the poet had composed another poem, besides the PC, called Käkutsthacarita, before he started composing YC. As the name indicates, it was probably a poem on Rāma, as he had the epithet Kakutstha. But no such poem has yet come to light.
